Pylimitics

If you were to delve into ancient books and texts you might fairly often run across a stylistic quirk in the way they were laid out. Choosing artistic presentation over legibility, many old manuscripts would print alternate lines of text in opposite directions. That is, the first line might start at the left and proceed… Continue reading

What people in the US call “molasses” is called “treacle” in England; it’s the same stuff. The word “treacle”, though, has the more interesting history. The original form of the word was “triacle,” and at first it mean an antidote to a snake bite. It came from the Greek word “theriake,” which also meant an… Continue reading

If you’re anything like Shakespeare, (and come on, you know you are!) you occasionally have the need to fling an epithet at someone. And here’s a good one. Shakespeare used it in As You Like It. When you use it, you’re calling someone immoral, vile, heinous, highly criminal, very wicked. The word is somewhat obscure,… Continue reading

The song I’ve Been Working on the Railroad includes something unusual. The first two lines are: “I’ve been workin’ on the railroad,All the livelong day…” “Livelong“? As far as I can recall, that song is the only place I’ve ever seen that word appear. What does that mean, and where did it come from?  It… Continue reading

It’s easy to see that the way we use language changes over time. Dictionaries are one way to measure this, particularly over the long term. Compare a dictionary from a century ago to a modern version and you can see changes in meanings of words as well as changes in the words that are used… Continue reading

Calling someone a “popinjay” is slightly archaic, but still in use; the guy who was White House Communications Director for about a week a few years back, Anthony Scaramucci, was called a “popinjay” by several commentators. It appears to have been Felix Salmon’s idea, who started it all the way back in 2011, when he… Continue reading